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This Week in The Khuta – Where are our Hip Hop artists?

The organisers of music festivals or concerts locally are the downfall of the Namibian music industry. Who organises a concert for one of America’s hotest and most talented Hip Hop female artists and select local Kwaito artists to perform at the same show? What happened to our local Hip Hop artists?
As someone who is a great believer in our music industry, I am very disappointed in the organisers of the EVE concert which took place over the weekend. We have very talented local Hip Hop artists and the one time an internationally famous rapper comes to Namibia, she has to share the stage with the likes of The Dogg, Lady May, Magogoes and PDK. Either the organisers of the concert does not know anything about music or perhaps they suspected that if they had allowed our finest local Hip Hop artists to share the stage with EVE, they would have stolen her spotlight.
I expected the organisers of the show to showcase our most talented local Hip Hop gems such as Jericho, Quido, Ru The Cute Geek and The 061 Crew to mention a few, but instead they got it all wrong. I wonder what went through EVE’s mind when she realised that there was no local Hip Hop artists performing with her.
The organisers of this event really sold our music industry short. Our Hip Hop music is up to international level but they had to take performers from the bottom of the crop and the wrong genre to share a stage with an internationally renowned artist. What a disgrace? How low could they go?
I am not saying that the artists who performed at EVE’s concert are not talented, I am saying that they performed at the wrong concert. I am not an expert in music and do not want to sound as if I know a whole lot about music but the organisers are people who produced some of the best music ever heard in this country, how could they get this one so wrong.
The local music industry has evolved so much that some of domestic Hip Hop material is being compared to the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West and other well known international artists. The EVE concert was the perfect opportunity for our struggling Hip Hop artists to make their mark in front of a wider audience. I am sure if EVE heard our Hip Hop artists flow, she would have given one of them the chance to feature in one of her songs.
I am not accusing anyone of anything except of bad judgement. It seems as if the organisers deliberately sabotaged our Hip Hop artists, that’s why most artists who performed at the concert were of a completely different genre, as if we do not have Hip Hop artists in Namibia.
What happened at the EVE concert is the same as what happened at the Hart van Windhoek concert last month. Our local artists who deserved that chance to become big were denied the opportunity. Now Eve went back to her country thinking that Namibia does not have Hip Hop artists.
I would have loved to hear a collaboration between Ru the Cute Geek or our very own king of Hip Hop Jericho and Miss EVE but it will never happen because she was given the impression that all we Namibians know is to sing senseless things and run around on stage like drunk people.
How do we expect our music industry to grow if the promoters and concert organisers do not support our artists? By the way, I heard the show was great, well done to the organisers for pulling it off and thank you for bringing EVE to Namibia but next time please remember Hip Hop artists at Hip Hop shows, Kwaito artists at Kwaito shows. At least that is how I think it’s supposed to be.

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